'AITA for wanting to break up with my BF for giving my Hamilton tickets to his sister?' UPDATED

"My [29/F] BF[32 M] 'gave' away my Hamilton tickets, am I being selfish for just wanting to break up over this?"

Backstory: My mom is genuinely one of the funniest, kindest, sweetest people I've ever met and I'm genuinely lucky to have been her daughter. She had me fairly young, raised me by herself and while we were pretty poor growing up, she did her damndest to make sure that I got a good education and had everything I needed as a kid.

One of the things we share is a love of the theater. She would save up and take me to all the musicals that stopped on tour in our town and while we were always in the cheap seats it was always something we both greatly looked forward to.

These memories of going to the theater with my mom are very precious to me and is one of the main factors in why I work in the entertainment industry today (corporate side, I have a horrendous singing voice lol).

Fastforward to today. Like most theater nerds, my mom and I are basically obsessed with Hamilton. And for those of you who aren't really familiar with it, this show is basically impossible to get tickets for at this point, unless you want to see it in January of next year. I'm lucky enough to be in a financial position w/my job that I could afford tickets for a show in July for me and my mom.

These are amazing seats (fifth row center), and through some type of divine intervention I managed to snag tickets for the night that Lin Manuel Miranda's (creator/lead in Hamilton) final performance. I surprised my mom with these tickets back in December (i bought them in october i think) for christmas. I'm making a whole week of it, I put us up in a really nice hotel,

i made reservations at a bunch of restaurants that we both want to try, and we're going to do a bunch of touristy shit in general (plus try to see if we can fit in at least one other show before we leave). We are both incredibly excited for this, my mom even has a little Hamilton countdown that she's doing on a mini chalkboard she uses as a planner. She sends me pics every day when she changes it, it's cute.

In January, I began dating this guy that I'll refer to as Josh. We were casual/not exclusive for a while but became serious within the last two month. He also works in the corporate side of entertainment, but at a different agency than I do. He also has a higher position than me, and makes a loooot more money than I do (this becomes important). We met at an industry event and we hit it off instantly.

I thought I could get really serious about this guy and up to this point there have been no red flags that I've seen (although tbh right now I'm sifting through all of my memories to see if there's something I missed). He also comes from a much much wealthier family than I do.

Josh has a younger sister that I'll call Jennifer (17) that's kind of going through a big troubled teen phase. She cuts class, smokes, and is really disrespectful to her parents. I’ve only met her once but as far as I know, she's not doing anything too bad she's just kind of a sad kid and could really benefit from some therapy (I floated this by Josh but he said his parents are kind of disdainful of therapy in general).

Josh says they can't reach out to her no matter what they do and they've tried everything (except trying to get her to a counselor but whatever).

Actual problem time: Sunday night I was at my place with Josh. We were drinking wine and cuddling while watching the tony's (theater awards show).

My mom was texting me during the Hamilton performance and geeking out about how excited she was. I laughed and showed my mom's texts to Josh because I thought it was so adorable, and he didn't say anything off but he was acting kind of strange after. He asked me what date the show we were going to was, I told him and then he went into the other room to take a phone call. I thought nothing of it

because we both have to take random phone calls like that for our jobs all the time and he's going through kind of a tough time at his. He was in an unusually good mood afterwards and said he had to go home early because he had to "sign some forms at the office early tomorrow" before we met up to get brunch with his parents later that day. Again, nothing too unusual and pretty common with the both of us.

He picks me up at work for the brunch with his parents and again he’s in an unusually good mood. I ask what’s up and he says vaguely that things are going well at the office and this deal he’s trying to make is finally going through.

I don’t really press for info bc we both try to avoid work topics (partially due to work shit being fairly banal and partially bc we both have to sign some pretty gnarly NDA’s) and this is only my second time meeting his parents so I’m still a bit nervous about brunch.

We get to the brunch place and the first thing his mom does when she sees me is give me a huge, warm hug and profoundly thanks me for my kindness. Her dad also gives me a huge handshake and thanks me for “helping out with Jen”. I’m kind of wtfing because I have no clue what they’re talking about. I ask what she means and she says for giving her the Hamilton tickets.

I turn around to Josh and he just has this big grin on his face. Reader, that time my boyfriend was away talking on the phone for “business” he was actually on the phone with Jen promising that I would give her my Hamilton tickets! I was so thrown off by this that I (kind of not very tactfully, I admit) say how I had no clue about this. Josh looks pissed, and his parents are equally thrown off.

But instead of getting mad at Josh his mom just says “Well, you can still give them to her though right?” And they all look at me like I’m supposed to just agree with this. And I try to explain that the trip is actually for me and my mom, and how important this is to my mom.

All three of them start going on about how Jen is “super excited about this” and that this is the first time that she’s not been mad/expressed happiness to them in a while. And that’s how the next half hour goes basically, until the parents leave, mad, and the dad calls me selfish. I’m so flabbergasted that I just sort of put up with it, but I could barely get in a word.

Josh and I go outside the brunch place and he starts screaming at me about my selfishness, and how Jen is going through a much harder time than they thought (he wasn’t very clear on this so I’m not quite sure what he meant), and that I’m being childish because “it’s just a musical”.

I haaaate having arguments in public (also this is one of my favorite brunch spots and I wanted to be able to come back without being embarrassed) so I wasn’t really engaging. He eventually called me a c-word (wtf????) and then left in his car (which is awkward as hell because it was valet parking so he was just kind of stewing by the valet stand while I was waiting for my Uber).

Later that night I texted him saying while I wasn’t giving up my tickets there are still some available on that date. However, they cost about $2,500 due to ticket scalpers jacking up the price. Believe me, this is NOT a problem for either the parents or my boyfriend (he literally bought a $3k watch for funsies last week).

The only response I got was that that was an exorbitant fee (I agree but not the point), he refuses to pay and he didn’t understand why I couldn’t just give the tickets to Jen. I also got texts from both his parents pleading with me to get the tickets and also they forwarded an e-mail to me that Jen sent to Josh and her parents for thanking them for the “surprise”.

Apparently she’s also obsessed with Hamilton and this is making her year. Also we live in LA, do they also expect me to give up my plane ticket/hotel? Wtf was their gameplan here?

Look, I completely understand wanting to help out with Jen and I feel really bad that apparently her family is filled with weirdos, but this has been all so baffling and the entitled behavior they displayed is a massive turn off. I am not giving up these tickets(is this selfish?), but I also kind of want to cut my losses here.

The attitude Josh displayed towards me outside of the brunch place was very unpleasant to say the least, and he knows how disrespectful I find being called the c-word so I’m of half a mind to just break up with him. He knew I had these tickets for a while, and I don’t get why he decided to do this now at all. But should I contact Jen and explain at all?

I just saw that she made a really excited post on Facebook about it (I’m not friends with her but I am friends with my bf and he liked her post). I would straight up buy the ticket for her but frankly I can’t afford those prices bc I’m saving up for the NYC trip for my mom. How do I move forward?

TLDR My boyfriend offered/”gave” my Hamilton tickets to his troubled sister without my knowledge and now he and his parents are massively pissed at me bc I won’t give them to her. Should I just cut my losses?

What do you think? This is what top commenters had to say:

weed420lord said:

This is really bizarre and I think you should break up. I'm super confused though still, as I'm sure are you. Who would think this was a reasonable way to go about things in a million years?

Nixie_D said:

Don't hand them over!!!! This is coming from a fellow theatre enthusiast. It's also something you gifted your mum months ago. Your boyfriend is being a grade A jackass, and so are his parents. Cut him out and block anyway he has of contacting you.

Quite frankly I'm shocked his parents aren't angry at him, any reasonable person would be. They're all incredibly entitled, and for a guy you've been dating four/five months, you owe nothing to his sister. He can pony up the jacked up prices if he really wants her to go to the show.

Edit: and if he throws a fit, tell him he can pay you $2500 each for them, after all, that's the going rate and you should be properly compensated. That'll probably shut him and his parents up. (Don't actually do this, no money is worth giving up tickets to shows like that).

lemonack said:

I would dump him. It's not just about the tickets, but the lack of respect--he chose not to tell you and waited for it to come out in public in hopes that you'd step down to avoid making a scene. You sound like you have a good relationship with your mom. Take her to the show. Good moms are forever. Boys are temporary.

[deleted] said:

By cut your losses I assume you mean dump your boyfriend and his psycho family, to which I say yes. I don't even know what's going on here, but you don't want to know. You do not want to be involved with this family in any way shape or form. If he were my boyfriend and he called me the c-word, he'd be very, very sorry.

Commenters overwhelmingly agreed: NTA. And also: DUMP HIM.

OP later shared this update:

Yeah, I'm typing up an e-mail dumping him right now. Normally I think it's better to meet up irl for things like this but his behavior both during and outside brunch was scary and I would prefer not to be alone w/him right now (maybe that's paranoid but better safe than sorry).

I think this is one of those situations where everything was so crazy and they were acting like this is totally normal behavior that I thought I was the insane one.